1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spindle motor, and more specifically to a spindle motor for use in a disk drive apparatus, a disk drive apparatus, and a method of manufacturing the spindle motor.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, in accordance with increased storage density of disks, there has been increased demand for disk drive apparatuses, such as hard disk drives, to control rotation of the disks, movement of heads, and so on with high precision. JP-A 2006-40423 describes a known hard disk drive (HDD). A gas arranged in an interior of this HDD is a low-density gas, such as a helium gas or a hydrogen gas, and the HDD is thereby arranged to achieve a reduction in resistance of the gas against a disk or a head during rotation of a spindle motor. The reduction in the resistance of the gas against the disk or the head contributes to reducing vibration of the disk or the head, enabling highly precise data recording.
A spindle motor (hereinafter referred to simply as a “motor”) installed in a disk drive apparatus sometimes has a base portion that defines a portion of a housing of the disk drive apparatus. An interior of the housing is sometimes filled with a helium gas or the like as described in JP-A 2006-40423, and the helium gas or the like tends to diffuse more easily than air. Therefore, in the case where a bearing mechanism is fixed to a through hole defined in the base portion, it may be difficult to ensure sufficient sealing of a region in which the base portion and the bearing mechanism are fixed to each other.